Overcoming Fear in Death
by Jetainia
Summary: Although she was dead, that didn't mean she couldn't be afraid.


_MC4A - Paranormal Phantasm_

 _Fill #9_

 _Representations: Myrtle Warren; Ghosts; Death_

 _Bonus Challenges: Casper's House; Second Verse (Mermaid, Hot Apple); Second Verse (Rock of Ages)_

 _Word count: 903_

 _Beta: Aya Diefair_

* * *

Moaning Myrtle was scared. She hadn't thought that would be possible once she was dead but it had happened. It was happening because she kept getting flashes of her death. There was something in the walls of Hogwarts that was once again let loose. She had been killed by this monster, by those yellow eyes that she didn't know. All she remembered of her death was those eyes. It kept coming back to her now. With every petrification, every word written on the wall outside her bathroom, she remembered more.

She remembered Olive Hornby making fun of her. Myrtle had blocked out that girl. She hadn't wanted to remember how she had been bullied for most of her short life by the other Ravenclaw. She didn't want to think about how sad and pathetic her life had been. She remembered now. She remembered how she had hated her own glasses due to Olive's constant taunts.

Now she remembered the day she had died. She remembered the boy who had come into the girl's bathroom. He wasn't allowed. Boys weren't supposed to enter the girl's bathroom. That was the rule. So why was he here? And then he started hissing and Myrtle was so fed up with everything that she had finally decided to make a stand. Of course, that hadn't lasted long as she had ended up dying. It was just her luck to choose the one time it would have been better to not say anything to say something.

And now it was happening again. She remembered that it was Tom who had killed her. She remembered that, but didn't know how that could be. Tom was gone, he had been gone for fifty years. Then she saw the diary pass by her in the u-bend of her toilet. She caught the glimpse of the name embossed on the back. Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tom was always experimenting with things, he had probably found a way to send his spirit to Hogwarts via his old diary. She didn't know the truth of it. Didn't know that there was a piece of Tom's soul attached to the diary but she was close. And she was scared.

Tom had killed her and now he was somehow trying to kill others. She almost wanted to run to the Bloody Baron's side and ask the other ghost to protect her. But she wasn't a whiny ghost, she would not back down. Sure, the last time she had stood up for herself she had died, but she was a ghost now. What could possibly happen to her now?

She helped Harry when he asked for her help. She offered to share her cubicle with him because she knew how dangerous Tom could be. How charming the boy was and how he didn't seem like a danger until he lifted off his mask and showed the world what was beneath.

There were memories everywhere and Myrtle couldn't take it. She hid in her toilet. Hid like the scared little girl that she was. She didn't want to think about her death anymore. She wanted it to all be over. When Harry and his friends came back out of the sink, she watched them. She wondered if they had managed to stop Tom. She followed the group silently to the Headmaster's office.

She learned that she was right about Tom being back in Hogwarts. She learned that he wouldn't be able to come back because Harry had stopped him. She thought she might have fallen a bit in love with Harry Potter then. He had saved her. He had found a way to stop her returning memories. She could go back to her cubicle secure in the knowledge that she was safe. That there would be no more monster in the pipes just waiting for her to let her guard down.

Myrtle may have been a fifty-year-old ghost but that didn't mean she wasn't still young. She had never been allowed to mature fully. She had been killed just as she turned into a teenager. She wanted to help Harry for helping her. In his fourth year, when he was struggling with the golden egg, she helped him. She returned the favour in the only way she could. She teased him as well. She let her simmering feelings that she knew would never be able to bear fruit show and enjoyed how flustered the boy got.

It was fun. About the most fun a teenage ghost could have, anyway. She stepped out of her toilet a bit more now. She wandered through the corridors and got to know the other ghosts that populated Hogwarts. They had tried to get to know her ages ago, when she had first died, but she had been too distraught and scared to want company. She had only wanted to wallow in her safe toilet cubicle. Now she was able to leave the cubicle without having a sudden panic attack.

She was free and all because one Harry Potter had destroyed a diary and killed a snake. After all these years, she finally knew how she had died. She had looked into the eyes of a basilisk. A basilisk killed instantly, she had had no chance once she had stepped out. She wondered if Tom had known she was there. She wondered if her death had been on purpose. She guessed she would never know.


End file.
